Political pressure to drop cases touched a new peak last year as investigations reached the highest levels of politics, Romania’s corruption-fighting agency’s chief Laura Kovesi told Reuters in an interview on Thursday.
“If anything, prosecutors’ resistance to such pressures has grown,” said Kovesi, who was Romania’s youngest prosecutor general and the first woman to hold the office, as the quoted sources remarks.
“The pressure will continue for as long as we investigate such cases. But I think it is important for the political class to reach a certain maturity and understand that all prosecutors want … is to get to the truth in criminal cases, and that we don’t have any other interests,” Kovesi also stated.
Last year, seven judges and 13 prosecutors were jailed for corruption. A judge at Romania’s top court has been charged with joining an organized crime group, as well as accepting a BMW car and two dresses for his wife as bribes. The chief prosecutor in charge of fighting organized crime is herself under investigation, currently serving a pre-trial jail sentences.
The renowned news agency also notes that top officials are investigated for corruption, among whom the prime minister’s brother-in-law and father-in-law, other top members of ruling and opposition parties, even the former president’s brother, ministers and, we would add, famous businessmen and sportsmen.
“Such has been the success of Romania’s anti-corruption prosecutors that television crews are now permanently stationed outside their offices, waiting for the next politician, businessman or judge to be hauled in,” Reuters speaks about the National Anti-corruption Directorate (DNA).
The European Commission’s latest review praised Romania’s judiciary, but however warned that there are more obstacles ahead, especially in Parliament, whose approval is required for a MP to be investigated. Only this month, it blocked an investigation into a current senator and former Economy minister.
“Laws … are constantly shifting and so there are some concerns that one legal change could confound or even block judicial reform,” Kovesi admitted.